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CINCINNATI 

A CIVIC ODE 
"By WILLIAM HENRY VENABLE 



Read in McMicken Hall 

UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI 

On the Evening of 

UNIVERSITY ALUMNI DAY 

November 22, J907 






jliiSHflRY »V UONaiifSS, 
Two copies rteceivsti j 
NOV 25 i90? 

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Copyrighted, 1907, 

by the 

University of Cincinnati. 



CINCINNATI 
A CIVIC ODE 

I 

O not unsung-, not unrenowned, 
Ere brave Saint Clair to his reward had gfone, 
Or yet from yond the ample bound 
Of green Ohio's hunting--ground 
Tecumseh faced the Anglo-Saxon dawn, 
My City Beautiful was throned and crowned: 
Then all Hesperia confest, 
With jubilant acclaim, 
Her sovereign and inviolable name. 
Queen of the West 1 

II 

Upon the proud young bosom she was nursed, 
Of the Republic, in the wild 
Security of God's primeval wood: 
Illustrious Child ! 
By Liberty begotten, first 
Of all that august civic sisterhood 
Born since the grand Ordain of Eighty-Seven 
Promulged its mandatory plevin, 
Which fain had reconciled 
Human decretals and the voice of Heaven. 

Ill 

Baptismal sponsors gave 
Her virtuous patronymical and brave. 
Prom hoary chronicle and legend caught, 
And blazon of that laureled son of Mars, 

Whose purple heraldry of scars, 
(From fields of valorous duty brought,) 

Dnriched patrician Rome with dower 

Of ancient honorable power. 



The half-tradition old 
Of Cincinnatus told, 
Who cast aside the victor's brand and took 
In peaceful grasp the whetted pruning-hook, 
And drave the plowshare through the furrowed 
Was g-olden legend unto Washington [mold, 

And his compeers in patriotic arms, 

Who flung the sword and musket down, 
(Their martial fields of glory won,) 
Shouldered the ax and spade. 
To wage a conquering crusade 
Against brute forces and insensate foes: 
Besieged the stubborn shade, 
Subdued their savage farms, 
Builded the busy town, 
And bade the desert blossom as the rose. 

IV 

Upgrew a fair Emporium beside 

Ohio's amber flood, as by the yellow tide 

Of storied Tiber sprung, of yore. 

On lowland and acropolis. 

The elder world's metropolis. 

Along the imperial shore ! 

V 

Yet not of Latian swarm were they 

Who hived the early honey of the West; 
They boasted Borean sires of strenuous clay: 

Long-striding men of soldierly broad breast, 
Of dauntless brain and all-achieving hands, 

Fetched out of British and Teutonic lands. 
Schooled for command by knowing to obey, 
Inured to fight and disciplined to pray, 

Columbian leaders of potential sway. 
Survivors of the European Best 1 



VI 

With grand desire and purpose vast, 

To purge from dross the metal true, 
And pour the seven-times-molten Past 

In perfect patterns of the New, 

They led the migratory van: 
And every hero carried in his heart 
The constitution and politic chart, 
The code, the creed, the high-imagined plan 
Of that Ideal State whereunto wend 
The hopeful dreams of universal man. 

And whither all the ages tend. 

VII 

Such the stock adventure brought 

Over Allegheny ranges, 
By the Revolution taught 

War and Fortune's bitter changes: 
They hewed the forest jungle, broke 

The wild, reluctant plain; 
With rhythmic sinews, stroke on stroke. 

They cradled in the grain; 
The masted barge on gliding keel 

Rich bales of traffic bore; 
The laden steamer's cataract wheel 

Befoamed the River shore; 
Anon, as rolls the thunder-peal. 

As glares the lightning flame. 
O'er trammeled miles of outspun steel 
The Locomotive came ! — 
Electron's viewless messengers, more fleet 
Than herald Mercury of winged feet. 
Far-flashing, multiplied the thrilling word. 
Freedom! and Freedom! — Freedom, evermore! — 
Which all the Appalachian echoes heard 
And broad Atlantic's rumorous billows bore 



Persuasive to his utmost peopled shore, 
Tempting- shrewd Mammon, and with louder voice 

Bidding courag-eous Poverty rejoice: 
Then Westward ho! the Movers found their g^oal, 

Ohio, thine auspicious Metropolel — 
Nor landmark-trees blazed by his hatchet blade, 
Nor scanty bounds by Filson's chain surveyed. 
Might longer then suffice as border-line; 
Not Eastern Row nor Western, could confine 
Emption of homestead, or sequestered hold 

Salubrious Mohawk's northward-spreading- wold: 
A century's growth, down crashed the 'builder Oak,' 
The quarry from Silurian slumber woke. 
The town, advancing-, saw the farms retreat. 

The turnpike rumbled, now a paven street: — 
With bold and eager Emulation rode 
Young Enterprise; keen Industry and Wealth 
Sought new employ and prosperous abode 
With blithe Success and robust Hope and Health, 
In verdant vale wherethrough Dameta flowed. 
Or high upon the crofts and bowery hills. 
Above the gardens and the rural mills 

Of Mahketewa's brook and affluent rills: 
Their palaces adorned each rampart green, 
Their cottages in every dell were seen, 

O'er which the well-beloved Queen 
Holds chartered reign 
And eminent domain ! 

VIII 

Today wouldst thou behold 
What ensigns of magnificence and might 
Her spacious realms of urban grandeur show? 
Choose for thy belvedere some foreland bold, 
Auburn, or Echo, or aerial height 
Of sun-clad Eden's blossomy plateau: — 



There bid thy wildered g-aze 
Explore the chequered maze, 
Unending street, innumerable square. 
Park, courtyard, terrace, fountain, esplanade, 
Gay boulevard and thronging thoroughfare. 
Far villas peering out from bosky shade, 
Cliff-clambering' roads and shimmering waterways: 
Lo, Architecture here and Sculpture vie 
With rival works of carven wonder shown 
In sumptuous granite and marmorean stone; 
Behold stupendous where proud citadels 

Of legionary Trade aspire the sky. 
And where Religion's sanctuaries raise 
Their domed and steepled votive splendors high: 
(Upon the hush of Sabbath morning swells 

How sweet, their chime of tolerant bells!) 

IX 

Seen dimly over many a roofy mile. 

Where hills obscure environ vales remote, 
Rise colonnaded stacks of chimney pile. 

Above whose dusky summits float 
Pennons of smoke, like signal flags unfurled 

Atop their truce-proclaiming towers. 
By the allied triumphal powers 
Of Science, Labor, and mechanic Skill, 
Subduing nature to man's godlike will: 
Forth yonder myriad factories are whirled. 

By steam-and-lightning's aid. 
Invention's yield perpetual, conveyed 
Beyond strange seas to buy the bartered world! — 
Hark, the hoarse whistle, and dull, distant roar 
Of rumbling freight-trains, ponderous and slow, 
Monsters of iron joint, which come and go 

Obedient to the watchful semaphore 
That curbs their guided course along the shore 



Edged by the margin of the southering: River: 
Now gfolden gleam, now silvern flash and quiver 
The molten mirrors of its burnished tide 
Whereover costly argosies of Commerce ridel 

X 

Thrice-happy City, dearest to my heart, 

Who, showering benizon upon her own. 

Endows her opulent material mart 

With lavish purchase from each ransacked zone, 

Yet ne'er forgot exchange of rarer kind. 

By trade-winds from all ports of Wisdom blown — 

Imperishable merchandise of Mind: 
Man may not live by bread alone. 
But every word of God shall be made known I — 

Thy voyagers of Argonaut, 
Enriched with dazzling ransom of their toil 
In ravaged Colchis, costlier guerdon brought 
As trophy home than prize of golden spoil: 
Gems from the trove of Truth, for ages sought, 

Precious beyond appraise in sordid fee; 
Audit of Culture, treasury of Art: 
Whate'er the Daughters of Mnemosyne 
In templed grove of Academe impart: 
Heroic Song, Philosophy divine, 
Precept oracular. Narration old, 
Or aught by sage Antiquity extolled, 

Or murmured at Apollo's lucent shrine. 
Here Education rounds a cosmic plan, 
Enough omnipotent aye to create 
From nebulous childhood, ordered worlds of man, 

Evolving Scholar, Citizen, and State. 
Each liberal science, every craft austere, 
All sedulous joys of book and pen are here, 
Delights that charm the reason or engage 

Imagination's quickened eye or ear: — 



Pencil of limner, sculptor's cunning- steel, 

And whirling marvel of Palissy's wheel; — 
Drama, in pomp of gorg-eous equipage, 
Ostends upon the applauded stage 

Phantasmagoria of the living Age; 
And, by celestial votaries attended. 
Impassioned Music, from the spheres descended, 

Abiding here in the tutelar control. 
Commands orchestral diapasons pour 
Exalted fugue and symphony along 
Resounding aisle and bannered corridor; 
Or, while the organ's mellow thunders roll. 
She bids enraptured voices thrill the soul 
With heaven-born harmony of choral song! 

XI 

Cincinnati! whom the Pioneers, 

How many weary lustrums long ago. 
With orisons and dedicated tears. 
Blest, kneeling when the pure December snow 

Melted, for pity, into drops of Spring, 
My heart renews their throbbing fervor now, 

Their toil, their love, their hope, remembering, 

1 breathe their patriot ardor and their vow. 
Their exultation and prophetic faith I sing! — 
For they were Freedom's vanguard, and they bore 

Her starry flag and led her empire West, 
Ere yet the wounds of sacrificial war 

Had healed upon their Mother-Country's breast: 
Courageous they and loyal! evermore 
Bold for The People! valorous and strong 
Against embattled Myrmidons of Wrong: 

Forever honorable, true, and just! 
Historial years, above their crumbling dust. 

On wings of peace and wings of war have flown. 
Returning Aprils green and grateful sod 



There where with hands that knew the ax to wield 

They pledged a log-hewn temple unto God 

Or ere they thrice had husked the ripened field 

Or promised harvest o'er the tilth had sown: 
Seers, Legislators, Politicians, these. 

Prom ancestors indomitable? sprung! 
Who, as with brawn of sinewy grip they swung 
Their polished helves and launcht the steely edge, 

Invading so the monarchy of trees. 
Or smote with ponderous maul the iron wedge, — 
Labored meanwhile within the spacious Mind, 
Planning and building, for their fellow-kind, 

Futurity colossal, on the vast 

Foundations of the immemorial Past ! 



COMMENTARY 



COMMENTARY 
I 

1. Saint Clair. General Arthur St. Clair (1734-1818), a friend 
and comrade of George Washington, was an ofificer in the Ameri- 
can army during the Revolutionary War; was president of Con- 
gress in 1787; governor of the North-West Territory, from 1789 to 
1802, living in Cincinnati eleven years, 1790-1801. His mansion, 
the first brick house built in the Miami settlement, stood on the 
south-west corner of Eighth and Main Streets. 

2. Tecumseh. Tecumseh, a Shawnee Indian chief, famed for 
his courage and eloquence, was born near the site of the city of 
Springfield, Ohio, in the year 1768. He made persistent effort to 
unite the aboriginal red tribes against their white, American foes, 
and joined the British troops when the war of 1812 was in prog- 
ress. Tecumseh was killed in the battle of the Thames, Canada, 
Oct. 5, 1813. 

3. Queen of the West. The name "Queen of the West" was 
applied to Cincinnati early in the history of the town. Some of 
Benjamin Drake's "Tales and Sketches of the Queen City" were 
contributed to the Cincinnati Literary Gazette, as long ago as 
1824. Ten years later, Charles Fenno Hoffman, in his book "A 
Winter in the West," employs the nomination as if it were then 
in familiar use. Longfellow gave world-wide celebrity to the 
soubriquet, by introducing it into his lyric entitled "Catawba 
Wine," singing of 

"The Queen of the West 
In her garlands drest 
On the banks of the beautiful River." 

II 

4. Upon the proud young bosom she was nursed 

Of the Republic. Cincinnati was founded in 1788, the year 
in which the American Republic was organized, and only twelve 
years subsequent to the date of the Declaration of Independence. 

5. By Liberty begotten, first 

Of all that august civic sisterhood. The two settlements, 
Columbia, near the mouth of the Little Miami, and Losantiville, 
opposite the mouth of the Licking, were begun, respectively, 
November 18 and December 28, 1788, nearly six months after the 
enactment of the Ordinance of 1787. The young city was not in- 
corporated until 1802. 



6. Promulged its mandatory plevin. The Ordinance of 1787 
was at once an organic law and a political promise. Of that nota- 
ble document, Daniel Webster used these memorable words: "We 
are accustomed to praise the law-g-ivers of antiquity; we help per- 
petuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus; but I doubt whether one 
single law of any law-giver, ancient or modern, has produced 
effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character, than the 
Ordinance of 1787. We see its consequences at this moment, and 
we shall never cease to see them, perhaps, while the Ohio shall 
flow." 

Ill 

7. And blazon of that laureled son of Mars. Lucius Quinctius, 
surnamed Cincinnatus, or the "crisp-haired," a Roman dictator 
and legendary hero, is thought to have been born about 519 B. C. 
The tradition goes that, while on his farm beyond the Tiber, he 
was summoned from the plow to take command of an army which 
defended Rome from invading enemies; and that, after thus serv- 
ing his country, he laid aside the sword and returned to his hus- 
bandry. The "Order of the Cincinnati," named in admiration of 
this Roman general, was organized in 1784, by officers of the 
Revolutionary Army, Washington being its first president. In 
recognition of this organization, General St. Clair, in 1790, be- 
stowed the name "Cincinnati" upon the hamlet opposite the mouth 
of the Ivicking, which, up to that time, had borne the name 
"Losantiville," given, in 1788, by John Filson, one of its founders. 

IV 

8. On lowland and acropolis. "The ranges of hills bordering 
these extensive plains, . . . being variously diversified by 
streams and rivulets, lying at different distances from the town, 
and having a dense covering of trees, afford a pleasant termina- 
tion to the view. From Newport or Covington, the appearance of 
the town is beautiful; and, at a future period, when the streets 
shall be graded from the Hill to the river shore, promises to be- 
come magnificent."— Daniel Drake, in his Picture of Cincinnati, 
published in 1815.— "The first impression upon touching the quays 
at Cincinnati, and looking up its spacious avenues, terminating 
always in green acclivities which bound the city, is exceedingly 
beautiful."— Charles Fenno Hoffman's A Winter in the West, 1835. 

VII 

9. The masted barge on gliding keel. Ohio River barges of 
the early period were provided with a mast amidship, carrying 



square-sails and top-sails, and they somewhat resembled small 
ocean schooners. 

10. The laden steamer's cataract wheel. The first steamboat 
on the Ohio River, the "Orleans," was built by Nicholas J. Roose- 
velt, a brother of President Roosevelt's grandfather, at Pittsburg-, 
and her trial trip was made from that city to New Orleans, in 1812. 

11. The Locomotive came. "The work of constructing the 
first railroad from Cincinnati was commenced in 1837. The road 
crept slowly up the Ivittle Miami. In December, 1841, the track 
had been laid only from Fulton to Milford, a distance of fifteen 
miles. The next year the road reached Fosters. In July, 1844, 
the first cars were seen at Deerfield, now South Lebanon, and be- 
fore the close of the summer, they were at the mouth of Todd's 
Fork. In August, 1845, the road was completed to Xenia, and on 
the tenth day of August, ten years after the road was chartered, 
the first train reached Springfield." — Josiah Morrow, in his sketch 
of the life of Governor Jeremiah Morrow, p. 73. 

12. Electron's viewless messengers. A line of Morse's electric 
telegraph, connecting Baltimore with Washington, was brought 
into operation in 1844. The wire was slowly stretched westward, 
and, on August 21, 1847, the first dispatch to Cincinnati was 
flashed. 

13. Freedoml and Freedoml—Freedom, evermore! That Cin- 
cinnati was consecrated to Liberty from the first, is strikingly 
attested by an early Virginia clergyman. Rev. James Smith, who, 
visiting Ohio in 1795, wrote in his Journal, on Sunday, September 
5, of that year: "We are now in full view of the beautiful and 
flourishing town of Cincinnati, most delightfully situated on the 
bank of 'the most beautiful river on earth'. This large and popu- 
lous town has risen almost instantaneously from nothing, it being 
(as I was told) only four years since it was all in woods. Such is 
the happy efi^ect of that government in which every trace of vas- 
salage is rooted out and destroyed. To a real republican, as I am, 
how grateful, how pleasing the sight which I now behold. To a 
man weary of slavery and the consequent evils attending it, what 
pleasing reflections must arise." — Ohio Arch, and Hist. Quart., 
Vol. XVI, p. 376. 

14. Bidding courageous Poverty rejoice. "It was not to Mont- 
mirail they were going — it was to America. They were not flying 
to the sound of the trumpet of war — they were hurrying from 
misery and starvation. In a word, it was a family of poor Alsa- 
tian peasants who were emigrating. They could not obtain a 



living in their native land, but had been promised one in Ohio." — 
From Victor Hugo's "The Rhine," quoted by C. I4. Martzolff, in 
his history of Perry County, Ohio. — "The poor man, (ungoverned, 
can govern himself) shoulders his axe, and walks into the Western 
Woods, sure of a nourishing Earth and an overarching Sky! — It 
is the very Door of Hope to distracted Europe." — Thomas Carlyle, 
in a letter to Emerson. 

15. Nor scanty bounds by Filson's chain surveyed. John Filson, 
(See note 7,) whose versatility enabled him to become, succes- 
sively, a teacher, an historian, an explorer, and a surveyor, drew 
the first plan of Cincinnati, or, as he called it, Eosantiville. The 
original name of what is now Plum Street, was Filson Avenue. 
The Filson Club, of Louisville, Ky., is named in honor of this 
pioneer of enterprise and of letters, who well deserves to be re- 
membered by the Queen City. 

16. Not Eastern Row nor Western. The old name, Eastern 
Row, was changed to Broadway; Western Row, to Central Ave- 
nue; and Northern Row, to Seventh Street. 

17. Salubrious Mohawk's northward-spreading wold. Mohawk 
village, a once well known hill-top suburb of Cincinnati, was on 
Hamilton Road, now McMicken Avenue. Here, as we learn from 
an essay by Elizabeth Haven Appleton, "Mrs. Frances Trollope, 
in 1828, had her home, in a farm house, on the edge of the prime- 
val forest which clad the country for many miles." — See volume 
in memory of Elizabeth Haven Appleton, edited by Eugene F. 
Bliss, and published in Cincinnati, 1891. 

18. Builder Oak. "The builder Oake, sole King of forests 
all." — Spenser's Faerie Queene. 

19. Silurian slumber. The Silurian Blue Limestone rocks of 
the so called "Cincinnati Group," including the River Quarry 
Beds and the Hill Quarry Beds, supply unlimited quantities of 
building-stone of great excellence and beauty. "The advantages 
that the city of Cincinnati reaps from the quarries which sur- 
round it, are immense." — Ford's Hamilton County, 1881. 

20. In verdant vale wherethrough Dameta flowed. "This 
sweet valley is bounded toward the rising sun by the gentle 
stream Dameta, or the creek of deers; and on the side of the set- 
ting sun, by the transparent waters of El-hen-a, or the stream of 
the green hills." — Timothy Flint, in a story entitled "Oolemba in 
Cincinnati," contributed to Hall's "Western Souvenir," 1829. 
Dameta, or Deer Creek, formerly the pride of local poets and 
artists, has long been imprisoned in the deep conduit of a sewer 



which empties into the Ohio near the foot of Butler Street, just 
below the Old Waterworks. The romantic valley of the once 
beautiful stream is now buried from sight by the dumpage of 
half a century. 

21. Mahketewa's brook and affluent rills. Mahketewa was the 
Indian name of Mill Creek. See William D. Gallagher's lyric, 
"The Spotted Fawn," which, sixty years ago, was one of the most 
popular songs in the Ohio Valley. It begins with the lines: 
"On Mahketewa's flowery marge 
The Red Chief's wigwam stood." 

22. Auburn, or Echo, or aerial height 

Of sun-clad Eden's blossomy plateau. Each of these 
lofty elevations commands a magnificent prospect of Cincin- 
nati and its natural environs. The Queen City is famed for the 
picturesque charm of its suburbs. The following sentences, quoted 
from an article by James Parton, written for the Atlantic Month- 
ly, forty years ago, are of interest: "As far as we have seen or 
read, no inland city of the world surpasses Cincinnati in the 
beauty of its environs. They present as perfect a combination of 
the picturesque and the accessible, as can anywhere be found. 
There are still the primeval forests and the virgin soil to favor the 
plans of the artist in capabilities. The Duke of Newcastle's party, 
one of which was the Prince of Wales, were not flattering their 
entertainers when they pronounced the suburbs of Cincinnati the 
finest they had anywhere seen." 

23. Daughters of Mnemosyne. Mnemosyne, goddess of Mem- 
ory and mother of the Muses. 

24. Here Education rounds a cosmic plan. The rounded plan 
of Education in Cincinnati contemplates a complete system of 
public instruction, comprising all classes and grades of school, 
from the most elementary to the most advanced, the crowning in- 
stitution of that system being the City University. — "The educa- 
tional system of Cincinnati is unique in its scope, including kin- 
dergarten, elementary grades, high school, and university, besides 
vocational schools of law, medicine, engineering, and teaching. 
The plan has been unified into an organic whole, which is more 
comprehensive than that of any other American city at the pres- 
ent time. The work that now engages the city is to make each 
factor of this great educational unit as ideally complete as possi- 
ble. — If the development for the next five years is as vigorous as 
it has been for the last two, the system of public education will 
be unique in another respect — in approaching near to the ideals of 



what civic education should be." — Dr. F. B. Dyer, Superintendent 
of Public Schools, Cincinnati. Annual Report, 1907. — "No institu- 
tion in this or any other country stands is quite such close rela- 
tions to a people as does this University to the city of Cincinnati. 
. . The modern university exists for the advancement of all men, 
without reg-ard to class. . . A municipal university is both the 
latest and highest expression of the striving's of the democratic 
spirit after light and knowledge. The people of Cincinnati should 
be proud, then, that their University represents, thus, the newest 
and most advanced thing in popular education. It is, thus, the 
privilege and responsibility of this people to lead the way and 
show other cities how to build strongly and conduct successfully 
this latest and most characteristic thing in democratic education 
— the municipal university.'' — Dr. Charles William Dabney, Presi- 
dent of the University of Cincinnati. Annual address, ("The Uni- 
versity of the City",) delivered on Commencement day, June 1, 
1907. — The Cincinnati ideal of education was recognized and en- 
forced by Hon. Elmer Ellsworth Brown, United States Commis- 
sioner of Education, in an address on "The Self -Respect of Cit- 
ies," delivered on the occasion of the Commencement of the Uni- 
versity of Cincinnati, June 1, 1907: "There is nothing more vital 
in our modern life than the interaction of these two ideals — the 
academic freedom of the university and the efficient cosmopoli- 
tanism of the city. Whenever a great university is located in a 
great center of population the two types of influence meet and 
mingle in ways that are full of significance. But where the two 
are bound together so intimately as in this community, where the 
university is part of the public system of education and the crown- 
ing member of that system, there is opportunity for peculiarly 
fruitful relations between them. The university is at once an 
added mark of civic distinction and an agency deliberately erected 
by the city to influence and possibly to recast the ideals and pur- 
poses of the city's life." 

25. All sedulous joys of book and pen are here. That Cin- 
cinnati, from the earliest period of its history up to the present 
time, has held foremost rank, among Western cities, as a center 
of literary culture, is a claim fully justified by the record of 
achievement of the eminent writers, past and present, who have 
been identified with the Queen City and its literary activities. 
"Within a period of ten years, counting backward and forward 
from 1830, there existed a literary circle of which Cincinnati was 
the center, which, as a whole, has never had a superior in Ameri- 
ca. — Among those who were influential in that circle, I may men- 



tion the names of William Henry Harrison, Timothy Flint, Micah 
P. Flint, Daniel Drake, James Hall, Jacob Burnet, Benjamin F. 
Drake, Edward D. Mansfield, William D. Gallagher, Otway Curry, 
S. P. Hildreth, L,. A. Hine, Caroline I^ee Hentz, Rebecca S. Nichols, 
Thos. H. Shreve, F. W. Thomas, Lyman Beecher, Charles Ham- 
mond, Elisha Whittlesey, Albert Pike, L,. J. Cist, James H. Per- 
kins, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Eliza A. Dupuy, Amelia Welby, 
Sarah T. Bolton, and John B. Dillon."— William T. Cogg-eshall 
(author of "Poets and Poetry of the West," 1860), in an address 
on "The West and Its Literature," delivered at Ohio University, 
June 22, 1858. — Among- the authors of a later period, whose dis- 
tinguished achievement, especially in the domain of poetry, en- 
titles them to honored recognition, may be named: Alice Cary, 
Phoebe Cary, Thomas Buchanany Read, William H. Lytle, Coates 
Kinney, John James Piatt, and Sarah M. B. Piatt. 

26. And whirling marvel of Palissy's wheel. Bernard Palissy, 
thfe renowned potter and enameler, was born in 1510, and he died 
in the Bastille, Paris, in 1589. His name is here used, of course, as 
suggestive of the ceramic art which has given "Rookwood Pot- 
tery" celebrity in every civilized country. 

27. Pencil and linnner, sculptor's cunning steel. Cincinnati 
has justly been called the "Cradle of American Art." Among the 
names of painters and sculptors who have plied their vocation in 
the Queen City, the following may be mentioned: Hiram Powers, 
1805-1873; Shobel Clevinger, 1812-1843; James H. Beard, 1812-1893; 
W. T. Matthews, 1821-1905; T. B. Read; J. O. Eaton; W. H. 
Powell; Godfrey N. Frankenstein; John P. Frankenstein; Frank 
Dengler; W. H. Beard; C. T. Webber; Thomas Noble; Henry 
Mosler; C. H. Neihaus; Frank Duveneck; Henry F. Farny; Moses 
Ezekiel. 

28. Abiding here in tutelar control. Not undistinguished at 
home and abroad for the achievement of her poets, painters, and 
sculptors, Cincinnati is, perhaps, most widely renowned on ac- 
count of her pre-eminence among American cities as a center of 
musical art and education. Her May Musical Festivals, her 
Symphony Concerts, her societies for the promotion of orchestral 
and choral music, and, above all, her celebrated College of Music, 
have exerted, for the last quarter of a century, a far-reaching and 
formative influence on the musical life of America. Of the illus- 
trious teachers, composers, and directors, who have been connected 
with the College of Music of Cincinnati, a few representative 
names are here given: Theodore Thomas, Albino Gorno, Otto 



Singer, Frank Van der Stucken, Pietro Floridia, and Louis Victor 
Saar. — Deservedly conspicuous among the many music schools of 
the Queen City, is the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, with 
which institution are associated the names of Theodore Bohlman 
and Pier Adolfo Tirindelli. 

XI 

29. With orisons and dedicated tears. "They made fast their 
boat and clambered up the steep bank to a level spot in the midst 
of a clump of pawpaw-bushes. Here the women and children sat 
down, while the men cleared away the underbrush and placed sen- 
tinels near the thicket to watch out for prowling Indians. Before 
undertaking to pitch a tent or build a hut, the little congregation 
(twenty-six in all) sang a hymn of praise and then knelt on the 
ground while their pastor, Rev. Ezra Ferris, offered a prayer to 
Almighty God." (See Tales from Ohio History, W. H. Venable.) 
Some poetic license has been taken in the poem, which places in 
December the religious ceremony which actually occurred Novem- 
ber 6. — But the second colony, generally regarded as the first 
settlers of Cincinnati proper, came to "Losantiville" December 
27, and there can scarcely be a doubt that they also signalized 
their coming by some suitable observance, most of them being 
men of piety, like their leader, Robert Patterson, who, we are 
told, "was profoundly religious." 

30. They pledged a log-hewn temple unto God. The first re- 
ligious society in the "Miami Country" was organized, by Dr. 
Stephen Gano, in 1790. The first house of worship was built in 
1792. This, the Columbia Baptist Church, was torn down in 1835; 
and upon the site a pioneer monument was dedicated, July 4, 1889. 

31. Seers, Legislators, Politicians, these. What Rev. Henry 
M. Storrs uttered from a Marietta pulpit, April 8, 1888, may well 
apply to the ideals of the original settlers of Cincinnati: "Today 
our minds go back across the century to that band of patriotic 
pioneers who, for the sake of the nation as well as themselves, 
broke ground for civilization on this spot beside the 'beautiful 
river.' Of their heroic character and achievements you have 
already heard. They came from their Eastern homes with high 
resolve. Imperial States, one after another, should be dedicated 
to human freedom. Unfettered religion, pure morals, a broad and 
universal education, public and private security under protection 
of equal law, industry, thrift and plenty, should here be the inher- 
itance of their children forever. They were planning great things. 
Prophetic hope lent them inspiring visions. They were 'building 
better than they knew.'" Ohio Archaeological and Historical 
Quarterly, Vol. II, No. 1, June, 1888. 



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